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Stop Fraud Politician Spending

Politicians across Canada are spending your money dishonestly, wastefully, and for themselves and their political parties!! But with your help they can be stopped!

Join the nation-wide call to stop fraud politician and government spending by sending your letter to key politicians across the country calling for stronger spending laws, stronger spending watchdogs, and higher penalties for fraud spenders.

The federal truth-in-spending watchdog Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO) is missing key powers, no province or territory even has a PBO, and across the country the Auditor General spending watchdogs are mostly toothless lapdogs.

Dozens of politician and government spending scandals have been in the news across Canada recently — federal Cabinet ministers and government officials, senators, the provincial premiers in B.C., Ontario, Alberta, Quebec, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Labrador and other provinces, city councillors in Montreal, Toronto and other cities – all of have been caught lying about spending billions of dollars, hiding spending, misspending or just plain wasting your money, including spending your money on themselves, their family and friends, or to help their political party.

Please send your letter now using the form on this page, and please help spread the word by Liking and Tweeting this page.

The key problems that the AGs across Canada, and the federal PBO, cannot currently prevent because of lack of independence, weak mandates, or lack of resources or powers, are as follows:

government spending can violate rules for years before an AG finds out;

spending by most politicians on their office budgets can break every rule because such spending is not fully audited by an AG or anyone else (except in Nova Scotia, and in Newfoundland and Labrador, where AG audits led to criminal charges against some politicians);

government advertising can often be propaganda for the ruling party (as it has been federally since 2008 as it has increased at an alarming rate – although Ontario at least gives the AG the power to reject government ads leading up to an election);

the federal government can easily thwart attempts by the PBO to produce an accurate report on the actual cost of any government initiative, simply by refusing to provide, or delaying release of, key information;

The need for effective enforcement by AGs of government spending rules has been shown by every AG report ever issued, and the need in the politician spending area has been shown through the recent Senate spending scandal that includes up to 22 Senators who have refused to answer questions about where they live and whether they are illegally collecting tens of thousands of dollars a year in residence allowances. As well, ample evidence is provided by the spending scandals involving politicians from various parties and levels of government including federal Conservative Cabinet ministers Bev Oda and Jason Kenney, former Bloc Québécois leader Gilles Duceppe, former Conservative (now Independent) Senator Patrick Brazeau, Liberal MPs Judy Sgro, Wayne Easter, John Cannis and Andrew Telegdi, and former Liberal Cabinet minister Joe Fontana.

As the only organization that has defended the federal PBO and called for key changes to make the PBO more effective since the office was created in 2007, including during 2009 when all federal parties were attacking the PBO, Democracy Watch has documented again and again how the PBO’s lack of independence and effective powers has allowed the federal government to escape accountability for dishonest budgeting.

The spending scandals involving federal politicians have revealed loopholes and shown clearly that the current system is not preventing misspending, and past audits of politicians in some provinces have shown clearly that audits catch wrongdoers.

The enforcement of spending rules is also far from transparent in some jurisdictions, such as federally where cases are examined in secret, behind closed doors, by the Board of Internal Economy which is made up of politicians from all parties who protect themselves and their party members instead of enforcing the rules and ensuring that taxpayer money is not spent inappropriately.

The spending loopholes must be closed, and auditor generals across Canada required to audit all politician spending regularly and penalize violators, to prevent politicians from using taxpayers’ money to pay their personal or political party costs.

Let’s stop them from lying to you about how they are spending your money, and stop them from using your money to pay their personal or political party costs!

And please help Democracy Watch keep this campaign alive until the loopholes are closed, and regular audits and high penalties required, to stop fraud spending by politicians across Canada – please donate now here.

The recent government and politician spending scandals involving many politicians from various parties across Canada, along with past scandals in England, Newfoundland and Labrador, and Nova Scotia, show clearly that Canada needs stronger rules, and stronger enforcement and penalties for violators, to prevent dishonest, wasteful, fraud spending by politicians, including politicians who use taxpayers’ money to pay their personal or political party costs.

Federal politicians, including senators, have been caught by chance – but comprehensive audits by Auditor Generals caught the provincial politicians, and politicians in England.

As well, dishonesty in government spending is rampant across Canada. The federal Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO) has revealed many cases of federal government Cabinet ministers, including the Prime Minister, making false claims about government spending and budgets in the past 5 years.

But the PBO has also been stopped from doing his work by Cabinet ministers and government officials refusing to give him key spending information, and by cutting down the resources he has to do his job.

I am calling on federal politicians to make the following key changes to strengthen the independence and powers of the Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO) in the following ways, and I am calling on every provincial and territorial political party to establish a PBO with the following key structure:

the PBO must be made a full Officer of Parliament, independent of Cabinet, with a fixed, non-renewable term of office and full power over the selection and management of their staff;

the selection of the PBO must be approved by a majority of party leaders after a public, merit-based nomination process to ensure a non-partisan and effective person is selected;

the PBO must be given the resources needed to fulfill their mandate each year (based on an independent needs assessment of their proposed budget);

the government must be required, before proposing significant spending, to check with the PBO to ensure that the actual total of the proposed spending is being accurately estimated;

the PBO must be given the power to order the disclosure of any information they need to do their cost and spending assessments, and;

the PBO must be required to release the findings of their investigations as soon as they are completed whether or not parliament is in session.

While there is an Auditor General for every government in Canada, they also do not have key powers, and resources, needed to ensure the public’s money is spent wisely, and efficiently.

Cases of fraud spending by politicians across Canada are usually dealt with in secret, behind closed doors, by a Board of Internal Economy or similar body made up of politicians from all parties who protect themselves and their party members instead of enforcing the rules and ensuring that taxpayers’ money is not spent inappropriately. This cannot be allowed to continue if Canada wants to call itself a democracy.

I am also calling on federal, provincial and territorial politicians to make the following key changes to strengthen rules and the powers of Auditor Generals to audit politician spending across Canada to ensure, especially, they are not using taxpayer money to pay their personal or political party costs:

require all politicians, their offices, staff people, and all government institutions and organizations that receive significant government funding to submit actual, detailed receipts and information showing the number and identity of people at any event, what exactly was purchased, by whom exactly, for what use, and at what price, for all expenses claimed and require the same for all travel expenses claimed;

require all politicians, their offices, staff people, and all government institutions and organizations that receive significant government funding to disclose within 30 days after it is signed the full details of every contract handed out (amount spent, exact work done, all evaluation reports); and to disclose within 30 days of completion every internal evaluation report about spending;

require all politicians, their offices, staff people, and all government institutions and organizations that receive significant government funding, before making significant purchases, including for government advertising, to check early on with the federal, provincial or territorial Auditor General’s office to ensure that what is being bought, and the proposed spending process, both comply with spending rules;

empower the federal, provincial or territorial Auditor General to reject any proposed government advertising if the advertising is essentially an advertisement for the ruling party and to only approve informational advertising that informs the public about key aspects of government laws or programs in a non-partisan way;

require the federal, provincial or territorial Auditor General to regularly audit spending by all government institutions, and by politicians and their staff (at least once every 3 years) and ensure they are given the resources needed to fulfill their mandate each year (based on an independent needs assessment of their proposed budget);

require that all investigations of politician spending be conducted by a federal, provincial or territorial Auditor General who is fully independent from Cabinet, approved by a majority of party leaders in the legislature, and fully empowered and required to investigate all alleged violations of rules, and give all the Auditor Generals the power to penalize violators and to order a correction of any wrongdoing, including mandatory high fines, loss of any severance payment, and partial clawback of any pension payments;

require the Auditor General to rule publicly on every complaint and situation in which there is reasonable evidence of wrongdoing, and;

require the Auditor General to release the findings of their investigations as soon as they are completed whether or not parliament is in session.

Please let me know what you will do to ensure that these changes are made as soon as possible. I will be deciding which political party to vote for in the next election based on the responses I receive from representatives in each party. I look forward to hearing from you.

Thank you.

Thank you for sending your letter, and please help keep this campaign going until these key democracy reforms are won. To donate now, please click here.

NOTE: Democracy Watch will protect your privacy, and keep you informed about this campaign and others.